RURAL DRIFT

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 593, 26 July 1933, Page 3

RURAL DRIFT

TO U.S. CITIES BACK TO THE LAND QRY IN THE STATES. PROFESSOR MOLEY'S VIEiWS. New Zealand is not alone in looking to the land to- contribute in a large measure to a solution of its present troubles. Even in highly industrialis. ed eountries like the United States of Ameriea it is realised that steps should be taken to reverse the rural drift to the cities and get the people back to the source of all wealth". No less an authority than Professor Raymond Moley, much in the news at the World Economic Conference in London, sets oiit the advantages of country life, particularly in times of depression, in a recenfcly published article. Professor Moley, formerly of Ohio, now Assistant Secretary of State in Ameriea, is one of the outstanding figures of President Roosevelt's Administration. His duties as adviser to the President inelude assistance on a wide range of questions of governrnental policy. Still Professor of Public Law at Columbia University, he travels by aeroplane to New York for classes one day each week. His intimate knowledge of President Roosevelt's policies and plans makes his article significant and authoritaLve. Indeed, much that Professor Moley has to say could be applied to the smali farms seheme launched by the New V.emlnnd Bnvp.rnment with the object

of reducing unemployment by the settlement of the unemployed cn the j land. ' Professor Moley points out that j American rural life has suffered by devastation made inevitable by the exodus to the cities. The drift of adventurous and ahle spirirs from the farms to the cities, ho says, was a igreat loss to the land. Genius and 1 energy were drained from it. People | had left the farms during the last de- j cade, not so much becaase of the possibilities of an easier and. happier lifs, hut because their shocking need f orced them to move from the land. With the stopping of the wheels of industry in the cities their vast population had been suddenly thrown into the streets. Only the greatest of optimists expected that all of this present gre'at host of the unemployed ever would return to industry. The Professor adds: "Unless energetic action is taken to direct the economic life of the country into more i rational channels we are faced with a permanent bread line and an increas- ; ingly burdensome dole. For many years the idea of a return to the land has been the haunting dream of theo- I rists and poets. The impossibility oi its fulfilment was generally accepted. j Economists and sociologists affirmed . that the distinguishing feature of our j civilisation was urban life, with' the , miraculous teehnological advancement that it had fastered. Challenge to Conservatism. "It requires vision, 0riginality, and, ahove all, courage, to challenge a be- j : lief so formidably documented and so widely held; hut from the heginning of t time the mark of unusual menj has • been their w'illingness to do hattle with the dogmatic assertions of con- j servatives. President Roosevelt is one j of these men. He challenges the as- . sertion that the cities must grow and , grow indefinitely. | "He challenges the pessimistic helief that rural life cannoti support more people or cannot be made sufficiently attractive to hold a larger population. Finally, he challenges the economic doc'trme whicli asserts that I country life cannot offer a living ta ^ the surplus population of the cities. "President Roosevelt flatly and frankly announces as a major policy of his administration and as a prim- . ary purpose of his life to put into effect a back-to-the-land movement that . will work." j Professor Moley points out that un- ( der President Roosevelt's recommen- j dation laws were enacted which re- J t lieved farms from an uneven tax bur- ! 1 den and made possible a net s'aving to agriculture in New York of approximately 24,000,000 dollars a year. These laws provided for rural educa- , tion, a fair equalisation of State aid to towns for the maintenance of dirt • roads, and additional aid to counties for the development of a system of f arm-to-market roads. Finally, a pro•gramme to secure cheaper electricity for agricultural communities was put under way. | The Ultimate Ohject. ' The ultimate ohject called, of course, for more fundamental measures, Professor Moley proceeds. Governor Roosevelt recommended appropriations for a land survey of New York State, 1 county by county. This survey, which I is now under way, involves a study , of the soil, of the climate, of the present use of the land, of those who live ' on the land, and the contrihution of j each farm to the food supply of the | nation. Its purpose is to determine I what each part "of the State is eap1 able of producing and what parts of j'land now under cultivation should be abandoned for agriculture purposes j hecause agricultural production on them is essentially uneconomic. It is pointed out by the professor that an interesting experiment has j heen conducted in New York State hy the emergency relief authorities and agencies. A number of families in 'dire distress in various cities through. out the State have been placed on small farms where they may produce food for themselves and where shelter and fuel are available. These small farms have been selected, so far as possible, near enough to industrial centres so that some memhers of the family may eventually supplement the income by work in industry. Reports as to the successful working of this experiment are still fragmentary. But it is interesting to note that those who are supervising the families placed on such farms report that often families that have never worked outside of cities before are working out their problems more successfully and ingeniously than are families with agricultural experience. After dealing with other aspects of President Roosevelt's economic policy, Professor Moley proceeds: "What is planned is no large-scale return .of immigrants from. the city to commercial farming to compete with farmers still in the field. What the President contemplates is the development of

subsistence farmers cultivating small acreages; keeping perhaps some chiekens and cows for the maintenance. of their immediate families; and, equally important, supplementing their incomes by work in industrial enterprises which have moved from cities into rural areas."